


A family idiots

by Kasan_Soulblade



Series: Tales of Abyss archive:  All My Canon Works [1]
Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Asch sets them strainght though, Gen, Reluctant Heroes, The Wings/Dream as a family, Van is... rather terrorfying, a dysfunctual, defining the Wings/Dream as heroes is a stretch, defying the Score, young Asch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:58:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3439526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kasan_Soulblade/pseuds/Kasan_Soulblade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were idiots, one and all.  Defying first by accident and base survival, then more so on purpose, then just because they could.  </p><p>And because it was all a cycle they sometimes wound up back on step one, running through the gauntlet again.</p><p>Life was part cat and mouse, part luck, and part knowing when to fold them, then refusing to do so because that's what Lorelei wanted. Because the Score was path of least resistance and they were going to resist even if they didn't know why.</p><p>And they weren't going to give Lorelei one bloody thing.  Not even this bloody minded youngster they picked up and passed between them in a juvenile yet hurtful form of hot potato.  Because they didn't have hearts, not one of them, and they weren't going to raise the red haired hellion that was raising hell with them.</p><p>They were too busy running, from world, from score, but the funny thing about running, the best of it happened on the road, and the funny things about roads, they were part of the world.</p><p>In short they couldn't run fast enough or hard enough.</p><p>Because they were part of the world, and they had to pay their dues.</p><p>And collection was coming, ready or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ending thoughts

A Family of Idiots

 

Ending thoughts

He clashed, and knew that he did. His garments were Malkuthite blue amidst the sea of Kimlascan red. They were appalled to see him there, but he'd been ordered to come. So he came, walking the ground of his enemies and allies alike. Uncomfortable with them as they were with him. And his stomach clenched in mute agony as anxiety dogged his every step. Still he did the rounds, acting cool and proper amongst the nobility. He'd come with one purpose, and having seen it started he had lingered to watch it be fulfilled.

Because a Nam-Combodian _never_ left something half done, it wasn't right, it wasn't proper.

It was also the echo of the ethos of a man dead. Dead men didn't talk, still Asch talked loud enough in York's mind. The God-General spoke from the misty realm of memory and his words stuck.

Like always.

York had fought a long uphill battle, against a man who only wanted to know he had one son and a woman so traumatized by the death of both her children that she hovered at death's door herself. A half month of fighting this bloodless war against the parents of his friend and he had had enough.

Still he didn't leave, not until his torch was cast. There were no bodies, no caskets to be put in the ground, so they'd settled on a pyre. No… two pyres, there were two dead after all. Two services, two bodiless funerals, and he'd see at the eldest of the dead off with a few good words.

It's all he had left after all, words and wishes, and though they were hollow it was all he could give.

So he gave them.

Face cast in red hues of the torch he stared at the pile of wood. At it's top fluttered a bit a cassic, the holy garment was stiffed by the wind, the rest of Daath religious garments were too weighed down to actually do anything more than shiver in the winds. He was aware of all those eyes on him, perhaps they wondered why he stared at the bit of movement at the top of the soon to be pyre, maybe not. He was aware of them all, and he hated them all. Because not one had anything to say, nothing that bordered on truth. Oh the mother grieved, but she grieved an unknown, and the princess -bless her simple heart- was too distraught to say anything constructive.

But besides those two exceptions of the rule, none of the others had anything to say.

As a matter of fact, what could he say, what right did he have to say anything. Yeah, he knew Asch, everyone in the Wing's did, but what could he say to those around him who didn't? Then he thought of Noir, so bitter that she couldn't be there because she was too hurt. She'd sent a letter in her absence, but it was more ramblings than anything else. The words of a distraught woman who'd loved and lost her only brother and wasn't thinking clear enough yet to actually say what she meant.

He remembered how Noir had started dying her hair red and only red after Asch had left them. She'd abandoned the moniker they'd known her as, "Noir the many colored", to become "Noir the scarlet". "A tribute" she'd said, when York had asked years ago.

Finally, he knew, Noir and Asch were friends, the closest, it was only fitting that they know of her, and of him, and of Nam Cambodia, all in one go.

It was only fitting after all…

"They shouldn't have been friends. It was that simple. He was quiet, stoic, sullen, while she was in turn loud, course, and impulsive. It should have been a war, a complete personality clash of the worst kind.

Yet, while all the warriors cast of stubbornness and pride were on the battlements, aligned in their proper rows and all the fontech devices of complicated logic, ethics, and morals were there, the expected clash never came.

Despite their difference and the chasm of years and experience –or perhaps to spite them- they drew close. Both recognized the loneliness the other hid, and it became an unspoken, unspeakable language that drew them together. Still, seeing them together was quite the sight. He wasn't boisterous, even as a child, yet she was all the bravo he'd ever needed. As his affection was slowly won it was impossible to see, for he never showed it.

There was a faint hint of a smile to his face though. A ghostly, haunted, thing which touched his lips a little more often, and that smile told us volumes. His approval –as he watched and learned from us- was as quiet as his laughter. It was a subtle slow retracting of criticisms, a rare word of praise. She in turn warmed openly, and like every other secret Noir held close to her heart she promised to tell no one and would up telling the world.

Still young enough to find that trait amusing, Asch remained calm and aloof, knowing better and more patient than she let on, Noir let the boy keep his act.

And that was the end of the Black Wings and the beginning of the Dark Dream."

He cast the torch upon the oil soaked wood, defying custom. For the pyre's of two of the same blood should be lit together, so the departed might rely on the light of each others passing to find their way to Lorelei's light.

Turning, facing that sea of anger and distrust, York smiled at them all. The fire behind him cast his form in a halo of crimson.

"Asch never would have waited for Luke, and if you didn't know that you're all idiots."

 


	2. ntroductions of a sort:  York and Noir

A Family of Idiots

 

Introductions of a sort:

York and Noir 

He had tried to get away, more than once. Testament to that was a multitude of rope burns, cuts, and abrasions. Before they'd freed him his hands had been tied behind his back. He was a small red haired thing; a scrawny excuse of a boy, whose determination to escape had been so strong that his captors had tied him up like so much baggage. Small hands had been bound with rope that had looped around the pommel of the dragon saddle, the ankles had been roped together. Even then, that level of binding hadn't been dubbed strong enough, for the length of hemp that bound the feet had been slung under the dragon's saddle.

The friction of his bonds had done horrible things to his wrists and feet. Despite the fact the boy was wearing boots the injuries on his feet were so much they carried him. His hands were so raw it looked as if the slightest touch would set them to bleeding. So his newest batch of captors bandaged his hands before they made their getaway. They also took turns carrying him, for despite being small and light travel and time made him seem heavy. So the boy passed from the hands of petty pickpockets, to bandits, from convicted murderers, to whores.

Blissfully unaware of the dubious repute of his saviors, the boy only curled into the warm embrace of those who carried him. For all intents he was oblivious to the world.

Not blessed with transport drakes like the priests, the thieves had run a foot. They ran until their feet ached and their minds went blank with fatigue. The sounds of fighting and fury eventually faded away at the force of their flight. Running was a cowards act, but then what were they not but cowards? The Wings were notorious cowards. A fact they'd often proclaimed proudly after a few tankards of strong ale.

"Damn sparrows!" Shifting his grip on the child in his arms, York skidded to a stop. Sick and tired of tripping over every rock and root he gestured to the red clad seductress who'd been matching him step for step. "Noir, take him, would you?"

Hands freed up, he ripped off the eye patch. When a man rips off an eye patch in Aldurant most others cringe. Eyes could be lost to arrows in a war, an incompetent sniper could have gouged it out with a missed shot, or some sadist proclaiming York a Kimlascan sympathizer could have gouged it out with a knife. Atrocities, like hate, were the norm of Aldurant. Any of these reasons could have ascribed to the loss of an eye.

Unlike most in Aldurant would have, Noir did not look away, nor did she cringe. Both of York's eyes were whole, and their hue was a blue so intense it was almost beyond words. The thief's only "abnormality" –occularly speaking- was that the skin normally covered with the eye patch was a mite paler than the rest of York's face.

The long faced man was as pale as a ghost in the moonlight. His navy blue clothes made him seem paler than normal. Still, despite his shadow clothes his visage bore a slash of whiter white. The slash was cast in the shape of a grin. Moonlight glinted as it caught on the edges of the man's jagged teeth as he smiled around his pants of exhaustion.

"Good run?"

Shifting her burden, Noir smiled. The boy's red hair fell across her arm like a sheet of blood.

"The best, hunny."

"Sorry my dear-" Despite the fact his sides heaved York managed to convey his favorite emotion, sarcasm. "-you aren't my type."

"I'm crushed."

"You look rather hale for a lady who's just been crushed. Not flat at all." Noir rose an eyebrow at the last comment. At the ex-prostitutes motion of surprise York managed a weary chuckle. "Don't worry dear, no lady -no matter how well endowed- could catch my eye."

"I wasn't worried." Noir assured him. "Not at all, I like my men to be a little more muscular, and less... stick-like."

Just to make Noir squirm York waited a few moments before saying in an artfully sweet tone, "So do I." Right as rain, Noir flinched and York let himself laugh a little. It was good to laugh, to spite the danger. As he did so the fires in the thief's gut eased a little, and he flashed the discomforted Noir a wide grin. As they hit the rest of the rocky hill both thieves slowed their run to a trot.

Once over the hill and descending the other side they walked the rest of the way. The dragon's screams -as well as the brown haired priests howls of rage- were far enough for them to allow a small indulgence. The terrain would buy them time, it had been so steep they'd had difficulties, and where a human could not tread a bulky clumsy traveler's drake wasn't going to climb. Somewhere below on the other side of the forested hill the dragon's rider was probably trying to get his beast to go up. Failing that, he'd eventually get the bright idea to try to make it go around.

Best of luck with that, traveling drakes were skittish despite their impressive size. Legends long ago told of bloodthirsty flying lizards that would have gleefully torched the forest, their riders, and anything else that got in their way just for the pleasure of a fresh kill. The more docile descendents of those monsters turned their blunted snouts away from meat. None of them could breathe flames, and they were so tame that they wouldn't leave the road without a hell of persuasion.

In short, they'd domesticated a monster to near uselessness. Even the wings that had been the legendary monster's trademark had shriveled away under centuries of forced captivity.

"Kinda sad, that," Noir said to herself, "dragons I mean. What they've become, it's kind of sad."

"Awww, and here I was hoping you were pinning over me!"

"Oh, you're sad alright." The scarlet clad woman assured her associate with a wry grin. Then she held the child out in her arms, an obvious offering. "You wanna take him?"

"Nah, he's too short for me." Turning as red as her favorite dress Noir was only able to sputter. With a wicked laugh York turned from the woman and her offering. "Grow up Noir, that's not how I meant it. My arms are long and bony and lanky, he'd slip right through them like a boiled noodle. Just carry him a little longer, alright? Ol' Dari' set up our hidey hole a little ways away. Him and Urushi can carry the kid when we get there. Until then, just suck it up and let's go."

 


	3. Chapter 3

Family of Idiots 

Chapter Two 

Introductions of a sort: 

Urushi and Darithin 

Ol' Dari' wasn't old, despite the playful nominative York had tagged to him. He was one of the youngest of the three. He was an impressive man, easily impressed with himself. In his prime he could have stood eye to eye with the formidable Black Lion, and since he was never out of his prime it was best to say that he was an eternally large man who rivaled small trees in height. Unlike the Lion -who was the current black star of the Maestro faction- Darithin was a cheerful man. A wide grin almost always cut across his face, and he spent his time between "jobs" whistling and humming his cheer. The curls of his outrageously thick beard and mustache were a black, coiling, coiled, obstruction of his teeth's yellow tinted whiteness.

Still he smiled, and offered that gesture freely to the "old" man who was nervously tapping his staff.

"They're takin' too long."

"Urushi, shut up."

He smiled even as he said it, and since he almost always smiled Urushi listened to the words and ignored the gesture. The squat thief shut up, but still his staff went tappity tap tap. The sound could have been soothing, if it had been measured out, steady, and had anything of rhythm to it. But Urushi wasn't a man of balance, on his feet or otherwise, so the tapping was as brainless and reliant at a woodpecker tapping away at a tree.

And like the woodpecker it was hellishly consistent.

Remembering how when he'd been a boy he had a sling shot and he'd hit those damned annoying birds with rocks the bandit fondly though of making one just so he could pelt Urushi with a pebble. But on the flip side Urushi had a thick skull, was slow on the uptake… Maybe he'd better buy a catapult, so he could pelt Urushi with a boulder. Yes, that would work, and leave a quite the impact too.

Curious as to why Darithin's smile had just widened, Urushi stopped his staff tapping. The squat thief who was eternally trapped in the pose of a squat –hence the double pun on using squat to describe his stature, or so he liked to point out with obvious pride- due to a weakness of the knees. Urushi's weapon of choice, the walking stick, was a good deterrent for jokes about his stature. At least the jokes told to his face. Urushi was blissfully oblivious to the ones whispered behind his back.

Both men had wild untamable hair. While Darithin went out of his way to do the rugged wild man look, Urushi's wild hair was wholly unintentional. The short thief sported the eternal bed head complex. That meant that his auburn hair was stuck in random wild poses that no amount of fussing could fix.

How they had tried! Darithin chuckled to himself as he remembered. Tying the man up Noir had spent a whole day fussing and combing and doing –and often applying- mysterious "woman things" to Urushi's head. Urushi's cries of shock and chagrin had turned into screams of horror when Noir, finally exasperated beyond her meager patience, had fished out a pair of rusted shears. She had determined that if she shaved the man that the new batch of hair that would come to replace the lost could be properly tamed. Darithin had called a halt to the group's game at that point.

And Noir, rebellious hot headed Noir, had fought him. York had been docile – a man on his back screeching his laughter couldn't put up much of a fight after all- but Noir had raised all hell. Darithin had asserted his authority however. He did so by knocking Noir into the dirt and wrestling the shears away from her, but he'd proved his right to run this biz and that's all that mattered.

"I was just thinking you need a trim, Urushi, it's getting frayed 'round the edges."

"No it's not."

Lifting his tall hat Urushi tugged at the edges of his hair and stuffed them under the hat. Or rather he tried. It was a partially successful endeavor that made his head seem swollen. The move also raised the hat a few inches. Still Darithin nodded, to say that Urushi was right. Let the man coddle his illusions of pristine hair before Noir –literally- sheared them down to bits.

"Look." Grinning Darithin turned his head so he was looking at the small thief. "Check supplies and empty some sacks that way we can get the hell out of here when Noir and York get back with the goods."

"Whatever you say, _boss_."

The irony of the word "boss" coming from a man too stubborn to ever have a real one when the world had been sane… It wasn't missed, and Darithin chuckled to let the man know it wasn't missed.

"Stop given me lip, "Squat"squech, and get to work."

 


	4. Chapter 4

Family of Idiots 

A Pawn

"Not bloody likely to fit in my bag, Noir." Urushi complained, giving the red haired child a nudge with his foot. "We can't sell 'er, not in this shape."

"You don't sell people, period." York snarled.

Darithin who'd been many places and seen his share said nothing. Still, it hardly mattered, both men felt passionately about their views. Both would argue the whole night if left to their own devices. Well, let them, Darithin decided. He'd let them fight and bicker for a bit, blow of some steam so it wouldn't build and cause an explosion later.

He knelt at the child's side, took a limp hand in his own, and felt for a pulse. A quick examination proved to Dari what he'd always suspected. Urushi was an unobservant fool. Well, he conceded as he let go of the child's hand, at least the _boy_ wasn't dead. Then he corrected himself grimly, not dead yet. The child whimpered at his touch, flinched, and it was that move that made the moonlight catch the small frame just right. Darithin frowned, stared at the kids wounds for a bit, then stood.

"I expected better from you Noir. But instead of goods you pick up this kid." Urushi growled at his partner, and dubious friend in disgust.

"There weren't goods." Noir countered. "Just the kid. And who says we can't make use of him? If they put that much guards on a scamp like this than he'll make a good ransom. He's probably some merchant's son or something."

Disgusted with them all York spat on the ground and stormed off.

Darithin let him. He stood then, turned to his bickering subordinates. They were only with him out of greed -Urushi and Noir- that was the only thing that mattered to either. Gald and luxury, not getting much of the latter after throwing their lot in with the Kimlascan bandit they were scrounging after the former with a hellish zeal.

"Considering what hell this kid's seen, seems like he wasn't worth much to anyone." Darithin snapped. "But he's useful, to _us_."

"What for?" Urushi snarled, not pleased to see Darithin take Noir's side.

Another facet, another game, he sighed a bit at the inanity of it all. Both novice thieves held an invisible score board in their heads, and tallied his agreement and disagreement, his humor and his ire. He sometimes wondered if at night while he slept if they actually went over their scores.

Darithin dredged up a smile for them both as he explained.

"Neither of you ever really consider what we're really fighting? Not our poorness, or our lack of food, or anything as base as that, but our real enemy. Ever wonder who or what he is?"

Two identical blank looks answered his question, and Darithin chuckled at their stupidity. York would have understood, but then that man was smarter than all hell. Having been to hell and back Darithin would say this much for York, hell was smart. To be smarter than that meant you were a damned genius, in all sense of the word.

Deciding that as a good leader he was supposed to help _enlighten_ his troops Darithin threw them a tidbit.

"Why don't you ask York 'bout it then?"

Again, they pinned him with a blank look. He ignored them and picked the kid up. The child whimpered, but curled against him, as if he was cold. Considering the rags the _sparrows_ had shipped the kid off in maybe that wasn't so unreasonable.

"Kinda scrawny," Darithin mused to himself, shifting his burden around a bit as he walked. "Maybe he's a pawn."

Only the soft patter of feet and near tangible aura of mystification at his back told him that Noir and Urushi were following.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Family of Idiots 

Chapter Three 

A small mark...

The orders hung in the air like a vile odor. Flat, uncompromising, all invasive, and faintly nauseating Darithin's words were all of these things and worse. They reeked of justice, of something long denied and properly -even timely!- delivered. She stared, horrified, and he smirked, pleased and so damn confident that she'd obey.

And she would Lorelei damn his Kimlascan hide for... for _knowing_! She would obey because she didn't have any other choice.. She didn't have some other place to go, some other life to live. All she had was this life, and she wasn't strong enough to live it but by any rule save his. And he knew that, and she hated him for it.

But she'd obey, and in the end -or at least for his end- he'd lead and she'd follow.

Because that's the way of Noir, she had been a follower all her life. It's all she'd ever known, it's all she'd ever been. Obedience was in her blood, and she'd probably die because of it.

And damn Darithin for knowing that too.

"He needs you Noir. He needs someone, just warm to him a little, alright? He's scared of York, scared of Urushi..."

"Why the hell would those circus freak rejects scare him?"

Fire was a writhing feet that cast the clearing about them in reds and oranges. Oily black liked at the edges of their light, a kind of anti-light that anticipated the death of their flame. The trees around them soared indescribably high, blending their dark brown to black for the moonless sky's fancy they seemed like pillars leading to the heavens itself. Back turned to it all, Noir stared at the fire, watched it cannibalize the wood that was it's lifebeat, better to stare into that mini inferno than into those blue eyes. Because, she'd look into those eyes, so warm and human, and she'd feel that thing inside her shiver and shake and break a little more.

She didn't want that. No more breaking, not now, not ever. She'd sworn it after seeing her whole world shatter around her ears. So she ignored the pleading _soft_ tone that was compassion and looked into the pitiless self consuming fire. Life was like that. You were given a line and you burned it, hopefully to go out in an amazing blaze that stuck in the mind for a little before the winds blew your ashes... your life... away.

"Don't make me order you to do this Noir. We both know that if I do you're going to screw it up. You always do when I force you into something."

"No one controls me," Noir spat. She kept her voice down though, not wanting to wake up her partners. Urushi was a crabby bastard if deprived his sleep, and York was a fragile one.

If it were a bid between which was worse -Urushi's belly aching and York's whiny puking sickness- she'd have to say that she didn't know. Both were annoying, both were inconviences, so she'd used that old axiom about prevention and cure. Darithin followed her lead for once, guided by his weakling impulses of compassion. But while he was guided by it, he wasn't ruled by the softie side either. His blue eyes got a glimmer of steel to them, and though Noir wasn't looking at him she could feel it.

"No one rules me but me. I said that to my old man, I say that to any who asks." Noir proudly lifted her head at the lie's completion. Then she made the dangerous move of meeting Darithin's eyes.

There was compassion in those eyes, a kind of "dog softness" that turned Noir's gut. She ignored that feeling and focused on the thing that mattered. There was steel and will under that softness. The sheath might have been lambs wool but the sword was fire wrought and sharp as hell. She met those eyes, looked at that face that was for once deprived of it's smile, and felt the edges of her world crack a little.

 _No, not again_.

She closed her eyes, and looked away.

"Fine then, I see you're going to be stubborn. I'll give you your damned orders and you'll listen." He took a deep breath, and under the firmness of his words was a kind of back handed pity. And she hated him all the more for it. "There's a lot of ways for a penniless girl to make her way. You're too old for them my dear, and we both know that. You'll burn out in that life before you make it far, but then that's your choice Noir. No choice. You do what I tell you to do, or I leave you to the wolves my girl."

"I hate you."

"A lotta people do, Noir. That's my life." And Lorelie damn her if the bastard if he didn't sound proud as he said it!

"You and your god damned honesty!" She spat, twisting to her feet, her hands were crooked into faux claws.

"What's it going to be, Noir? My way or the wolf's way?"

"I hate you!" Her voice rose in pitch, in volume. His glare was enough to shut her up, his gaze silently demanded no only silence, but a response. She deflected the look and staled the only way she could. She turned away from Darithin and stared into the rippling black. She turned, and she hated, and she _seethed_.

He let her, he knew her all too well, and though he didn't say a word and she didn't say a word he nodded. Though she couldn't see the move his shadow –a blackness glimpsed from the corner of the eye- bobbed a little.

"God damn you." It was a whisper now, her anger was gone. The tears of frustration smarted behind her blue eyes.

"Lorelie's done that already and he hasn't knocked me off yet."

"I hate you. I hate how you exploit what I am."

"Then change what you are."

They'd done this dance before, a hundred times it seemed. His challenge was always the same her silence was always her answer. She turned, and as all the times before her anger staining her face red and trails of water trickled down from her eyes.

"Oh _bravo_!" Dismissed in the midnight drama York had kept his wits and alertness, merely shamming sleep. As the fight had taken its predetermined route he'd propped himself up on one elbow to better watch the action. Cold black eyes flicked from her surprised face to Darithin's. "How heart wrenching to see the lover's quarrel, such an edge of pathos to add to the ho-hum of our dreary journey."

" York." Darithin's hand drifted his belt. Even when preparing for sleep the man was always armed. The large thief fingered the hilt of a short sword for emphasis. "Shut up, roll over, and go to sleep."

"Whatever." York followed his orders, at least order one and two. From the quiet snigger that came from the scrawny thief it was obvious order three was steadfastly being ignored.

In perfectly foul humor, Darithin turned his gaze to Noir. There was no softness now. "Just do it Noir, I don't have time to coddle you."

"Yeah, what's it gunna cost you? Will being nice to a brat actually hurt you Noir, you that mean?" Came the sneered comment from the _sleeping_ York.

" York!" Darithin snarled.

"Well if you two love birds would stop fighting I could actually sleep!" York whined. "Instead you keep me up with all night your damn melodrama crap! I'm gunna get indigestion for sure…"

Oblivious to his surroundings Urushi snored on, Darithin tried to shut up York, and the slender thief delighted in his rare opportunity to get the one up on Noir and Darithin at the same time. The thieves four were fixated on their own problems, amusements, or rest to the point of being oblivious of two points of emerald. Two glimmers of green, framed round with black bruises, and highlighted with a mane of crimson. They watched the drama unfolding, and noted and remembered. Satisfied after an hours lone watch they closed, and the child's sham of sleep became sleep in truth. Only that sigh marked the truth from the lie.

 


	6. Chapter 6

A Family of Idiots 

 

My name… 

"Don't touch me! I can manage on my own!"

It was the fifth time this morning the red haired child had cringed back from the slightest touch. All his newest batch of captors had come in contact with him and his blazing temper at least once this morning. Even Darithin, who'd watched his underling's antics with amusement, had been taken somewhat aback when the pale child had whipped to face him, an animal like snarl rising from his throat.

What was Darithin's infraction, the curious would have asked; it was to dare to support the child when the boy looked about ready to fall. The scene might have been funny if the kid weren't so serious. Even Noir had flinched back from the child's rages, all the adults were now effectively cowed by a boy that was so sickly looking York and Urushi had made bets as to when he'd fall. But the child hadn't fallen, not yet, only pride kept his pace even with theirs. And as to why he didn't flee, well the answer was obvious.

Behind them, _right_ behind them it seemed, came the monotonous tromping of iron shoed feet. The knights had abandoned their dragons, or perhaps the animal screams behind them told a truer tale. The dragons had been marked as useless and slaughtered. Regardless, the animals had been discarded and the men hunted for the child afoot.

"Gods above, I hate oracle soldiers!" York gasped as he staggered up yet another hill. Craning his scrawny neck he looked over his shoulder, his pale face waxen due to the unaccustomed exertion. "I hate them all! I'll stab 'em all in the back if I get the chance!"

Noir didn't even bother to join in on York's ranting. She just kept her mouth shut and waited. Still glaring at her, as if a mere look would make her withdraw her hand; the red haired child wiped a smear of blood and sweat from right above the eyes. The moment of weakness indulged upon, the child went back to climbing and Noir let him go ahead a little ways before following. Out of the lot of them Darithin was doing the best, and Urushi and the kid were having a tie for the worst. Whimpering with every step the deformed member of the Black Wings choked and sobbed at every step, and he was making a hellish racket because of that. All Noir really wanted to snarl at him to shut up, the words had formed on the tip of her tongue, but at the calling of his name Urushi had looked up at her...

The tears running down the man's face had stilled her words. She'd choked them down with a weak cough and shook her head to say later. But there wasn't going to be a later, she was sure, the knights must be gaining.

"Damn ingrate." Noir snarled under her breath as the child scrambled ahead of her.

But the rest of her verbal barrage stayed locked behind her teeth, for the boy's path was marred with red streaks. Blood, the kid was bleeding and not saying a word. Shaking her head, deciding she was surrounded by masculine idiots, Noir just kept her mouth shut and went on. York was swaying, staggering with every step, and looked ready to just drop over and die. Darithin was shaking, sweating, and looking like a giant plow beast that needed a good feed and some rest.

As for her, she was too vain to ask what she looked like. Probably like a tramp, oh well. Smirking despite how it hurt to smirk, the thief went on her way, forever up. At one of the rare times Darithin dared to call for a halt Noir rounded on him, or rather she wanted to. All she managed was to limp towards him, her face both scarlet and pale from exertion.

"Where… are… we… going?" She croaked.

It was the child who answered. His high pitched voice was horse from panting the last mile or so.

"The springs."

Darithin nodded.

"When we hear water, we'll lose 'em. They'll think were an opposing faction and went down."

"Down?" Noir managed to not whimper the question by a hair's breadth.

"Hell if I know where down is, but I heard some priest say there was something down below Aramis Spring or some such rot... Priests are all nuts, ever last one of 'em."

For the first time since being rudely woken at midnight by the dragon's screams the red haired child's face twisted into what might have been a smile. Darithin saw the grin and leaned back against a nearby tree to more comfortably glower at the child.

"You know something 'bout this?" Darithin grunted.

"Master Van said there was a city down, under water and earth. I didn't think he meant the springs though."

"Then how'd you guess?" Darithin pressed.

Noir, sick and tired of them both wandered off to a nearby rock and just sat, her mind going blank with fatigue, each thought was an inhuman effort. Finally she just stopped thinking altogether. She decided that if Darithin had a plan, that was good, that was fine. Now she'd just follow it like she had followed the others and hope that nothing else went wrong.

"They're the only thing near here, well except the volcano." The child smirked at the large man. He was an arrogant one, at that, and smart too. He wasn't speaking at all childlike. Noir flicked open her red fan and waved it in front of her face. Forested Daath was, comfortably cool it was not. "I didn't think you'd have me run this far if you were going to drop me in a volcano."

"Naw, I don't do roasted kiddo, sorry. Cannibalism ain't my way."

The joke was met with a weary grunt from the child, who just sat on the earth. He didn't care where he fell, that was obvious, but he didn't stretch himself out on the leaf strewn earth with a grown like Urushi and York had.

"What's your name, kid?"

"Don't have one."

Noir let the fan stop flapping, stilled it with one motion and made it click itself closed with a sharp gesture of her hand and a flick of the wrist.

"Ya gotta be kidding me." Noir snarled. "Everyone's got a name."

Green eyes met her own, he looked her in the eye and once again cowed her with his gaze. Too serious, too somber, too adult for that child's face, that was part of his power. His adult like demeanor was surreal considering that his form was that of a child. It brought back images from stories, half remembered tidbits about children who never died, who watched as their families and friends grew old and were never touched by time. Such were the 'child's stories' that she read, the stories that York degraded and mocked for being so unstudious.

"They took my name away." The red haired child said coolly, calmly. Though at his own words the ice that coated the boy's green eyes seemed to crack a bit around the edges. That breaking reminded Noir of her own, when she met Darithin's gaze half a day ago and dared deny him. Uncomfortable, Noir looked away.

"Yeah," Sounding nonchalant was the hardest thing she'd ever done today. Perhaps it was the hardest thing she'd ever done in her life. "-whatever."

In her "I'm so tough pose" that consisted of looking away; Noir missed the shimmer of tears that gleamed around the edges of the child's eyes.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Family of idiots

Grace

Ditching pursuit had been easy. A piece of cake or a slice of pastry, (the saying depended on if you asked Noir or York about it). Once up the slope and hugging the side of the mountain the trail had gone cold. Losing both trail and head the Comidant had charged headlong to the heart of the mountain while his quarryhiked along it's flank. Satisfied that the hunt was off the four people of dubious repute and their charge had begun the walk down. When they had stopped for thier light luncheon they had found a stream, and play, both.

The water was shockingly cold. The shock though was a pleasant one, the numbness that followed it a blessing. Raising their voices in gasps of surprise at their fine, the unlikely gathering of Malkuth and Kimlascan thieves acted in the most unlikely of ways.

They acted like children.

Kicking off boots and vests they plunged into the water, even the deformed, short man cast his walking stick aside and tumbled in. Racial alliances were forgotten, grudges cast aside, all for the pleasure of the moment. Grinning mischievously the red haired woman called Noir slipped behind the tall black bearded man. One half jump later she descended, bringing him down with her. Howls and hoots met that attack, and with a blush that could have done a maiden proud Noir retreated to the far shore before their leader could rise and give out retribution.

Sputtering, red face, the tall black haired man surged to the surface and managed one step towards his assailent. Hoots form the background made justice unplasable. In moments all out war was declared between the men.

At the forest's edge the child watched the thieves play with eyes wide.

Running a hand through her own locks -red today, as red as the child's hair whom they'd stollen- Noir looked upon her manufactured chaos with a smile. Smug, triumphant, and with the barest of blushes on her cheeks she looked upon the fight as if it were all her doing. Then, she looked past the fight, across the shallow river, and from the far bank looked on him. Hard eyes warmed with amusement she favored her "loot" with a backhanded kind of attention.

"Aren't you going to join in, kid?"

He'd been creeping forward without knowing. Slinking from the shadowed edge into sunlight and the laughter he was an unwitting victim of the soundless beckoning of lapping waves. Jolted back to himself, the boy cringed back at the blatant invitation. Eyes wide, he shook his head wildly, sending crimson locks swaying this way and that.

As always, when faced with opposition, Noir went the way of water. Took the path of least resistance, and she did it with grace.

"Whatever" The thief sniffed.

Whether it was ill grace or good, Noir did everything with grace. No one could ever denying that.


End file.
